Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.

Every writer knows that ideas are the enemy.

I’ve discovered that sometimes writing badly can eventually lead to something better. Not writing at all leads to nothing.

Writing is the supreme solace.

Where would David Copperfield be if Dickens had gone to writing classes? Probably about seventy minor characters short, is where. (Did you know that Dickens is estimated to have invented thirteen thousand characters? Thirteen thousand!...

When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. For instance: you will capture the truth...

We all have a place within us, that would like to rewrite the way our life was written out for us….That’s why people want to become authors.

Do you like reading? It’s the best thing that can happen to you in life. Writing has other implications.

A goal that is not written is not a goal. It only becomes real when you write it down.

USURY: Everybody’s looking for the job in which you never have to pay anyone their pound of flesh. Self-employed nirvana. A lot of artists like to think of themselves as uncompromising; a lot of management...

Writings are thoughts in a defined moment.

Words are music to the ears, alone or together, with or without melody.

Don’t give people what they want, give them what they need.

Once you are at the point where you can call yourself a writer, there’s no going back.

One can not understand language because language cannot understand itself; does not want to understand

I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to see.Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.

A novel takes the courage of a marathon runner, and as long as you have to run, you might as well be a winning marathon runner. Serendipity and blind faith faith in yourself won’t hurt...

I say fuck the old advice ‘show, don’t tell.’ It’s called story TELLING for a reason, and I’ll stick to it!

Warum man schreibt, ist eine Frage die sich der Schriftsteller, völlig versunken in seine Arbeit, nicht stellt. Theorien sind das Gebiet derer, die nicht handeln.

Think of this – that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other. True, the writer may have been alone also with Spenser’s golden apples in the...

Shut up and write.

How does the saying go? When two locusts fight, it is always the crow that feasts.’Is that a Luo expression?’ I asked. Sayid’s face broke into a bashful smile. We have a similar expression in...

Then there were his education and his reading, the books he bought and borrowed, his knowledge of things that could not be eaten or worn or cohabited with, his interest in poetry and his respect...

There will be pages. Lots and lots of pages. Most of the pages will have letters on them, and a vast majority of these letters will be in the Roman alphabet.

The central point of the work of art is the work as origin, the point which cannot be reached, yet the only one which is worth reaching.

In a sense, the first (if not necessarily the prime) function of a novelist, of ANY artist, is to entertain. If the poem, painting, play or novel does not immediately engage one’s surface interest then...

A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety.

Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.

An intensely gripping narrative…expertly crafted and totally addictive…a must read!

I don’t want to analyze myself or anything, but I think, in fact I know this to be true, that I enter the world through what I write. I grew up believing, and continue to...

Writer’s block is when your imaginary friends won’t talk to you.

Rejection isn’t a sign of failure. Rejection is a reminder that there’s always room for improvement.

When you write a manuscript, it feels like being in a relationship with someone. You’ll hate it, get bored with it, be pissed of, like you just want to break up. But, just like any...

I must write now and quickly, before I begin to prefer the perfect version that lives in my head.

It is a great paradox and a great injustice that writers write because we fear death and want to leave something indestructible in our wake and, at the same time, are drawn to all the...

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.

If, however, the poetic end might have been as well or better attained without sacrifice of technical correctness in such matters, the impossibility is not to be justified, since the description should be, if it...

If you can’t write clearly, you probably don’t think nearly as well as you think you do.

I’m an observer. I am fascinated by people and how their minds work (and, of course, my own). Why we are the way we are, why we do the things we do – and that...

In our modern world, this elemental quality of storytelling is denied. We live today in a world in which everything has its place and function and nothing is left out of place. Storytelling is thus...

We writers are a crazy group. I can’t think of any other profession where the actual work is deep within, uncomfortable, and wanting out.

The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.

A writer flirts with schizophrenia, nurtures synaesthesia, and embraces obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your art feeds on you, your soul, and, yes, to a degree, your sanity. Writing novels worth reading will bugger up your mind, jeopardise...

The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good.

You can make anything out of writing.

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

The usual run of children’s books left me cold, and at the age of six I decided to write a book of my own. I managed the first line, ‘I am a swallow.’ Then I...

Creativity – like human life itself – begins in darkness

There is a point at which honesty becomes mischief. That’s when your writing becomes irresistible.

So there’s a freeing up that happens when I can go into that storytelling mode…It isn’t about how much sense you make, it is about how compelling you are. (interview)